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William Redding was born in 1969 in San Diego, California. He attended the University of Chicago, where he received a B.A. in political science with a dual major in history. He then joined the Marine Corps where he trained as a communications specialist, and rose quickly to the rank of captain. Redding left the Corps to work for the NSA as a signal intelligence analyst. He soon found that his experience as a Marine ended up getting him assigned to atypically dangerous locales and bringing him a lot of recognition.

He was Sam Fisher's field handler and advance man, known for being a bookworm of the highest caliber with a fanatical focus on planning and details, a complete geek.[3] He was also a Marine Corps trained interrogator.[4]

In the summer of 2007, Redding served as Sam Fisher's field runner during the Cyber Attacks on New York City and the East Asian Crisis, which nearly saw the world thrust into World War III. Redding was in charge of assembling Sam's equipment, and maintained many standard sets of gear committed for different types of missions, including stealth and assault. He also kept Fisher up to date on the nature of the enemies and means of security he would face on his missions, ensuring that there was no room for error on a high-priority assignment. Many of the objectives he addressed were secondary objectives that ultimately proved all the more helpful in Third Echelon's efforts to track down the engineers behind the crisis, such as monitoring weapons trades and the hunt for accomplices. Redding was known for his efficiency when providing tactical assistance to Fisher.

After the JBA Crisis, Redding discovered that some of Sam Fisher's files did not match what really happened during the events of missions in Sam's career. Redding explained what really happened during the events in which he had helped Sam during the NYC Cyber Attacks/East Asian Crisis two years before, and where discrepancies in the files exist. His discovery prompted his fellow Third Echelon colleague Anna Grímsdóttir into looking through Sam's records, which led to the discovery that they were tampered by Lawrence Williams (who became Director of Operations after Irving Lambert took an extended leave of absence during the JBA Crisis/Red Mercury Incident) in order to frame Fisher. He also learned later that Director Williams had confronted Anna and took the CD containing the evidence of his file tampering. Later, after Sam escaped from his interrogators, he hid in Redding's office and was able to explain what happened during his last mission to Grim and Redding over a phone. Redding told Sam that he needed to infiltrate the NSA Headquarters to get the CD that Director Williams had stolen.

Redding is a calm, bookwormy type. He is fanatical about his planning, preparation, and data, and is meticulously accurate in every facet of his job. He is a bit of a fetishist when it comes to weapons and vehicle specifications and could list from memory every item aboard an Osprey at any time, including its weight and location.